Holding back the mill levy increase in the city’s general fund was a main focus during the Manhattan City Commission meeting at City Hall Tuesday. The meeting was the commission’s final budget work session before the proposed 2019 budget goes to publication on Friday.
The mill levy is a tax rate on assessed property value and a mill amounts to 1 dollar for every 1000 dollars a property is worth.
Prior to the meeting, the general fund was projected to have about a 1.7 mill increase in the general fund. In past sessions, commissioners expressed a desire to see a breakdown of possible ways to reduce that. City staff presented options to commissioners on possible cuts that could be made to hold back the increase. The options broke the cuts down into 0.25 mill increments — starting at 1.75 mills down to a mill increase of zero in the general fund.
Assistant Director of Finance Hillary Badger said city staff recommends Manhattan aim for a mill increase of just 1 mill in the general fund — but to reach that goal, commissioners would have to agree to $574,000 in additional cuts to the proposed budget.
These would come from various sources, including $175,000 in cuts to the Capital Improvement Program, $106,000 from seasonal expenses largely used by Parks and Recreation as well as $20,000 for road materials included in the general fund. Badger said a 1 mill increase in the general fund would raise property taxes for owners of homes valued at $200,000 by $23 per month. A 1 mill increase in the general fund would raise commercial property taxes by $250 for every $250,000 in assessed property value.
Commissioner Wynn Butler said he doesn’t want to see any money cut from road materials.
“You know I’m all for cutting the mill levy, but I think people don’t want to see us chop anything out of roads,” said Butler. “We’ve just had way too much discussion on that, we passed a sales tax to get it so we had $4 million and I don’t want to see us shave a dime out of that. So that alone would cause me to vote no on the budget if we’re going to chop the roads.”
He repeated previous recommendations to look into cutting out commissioner travel funds as one potential place to cut instead.
Commissioner Jerred McKee said he was happy city staff could find a way to get the mill increase down to a 1 mill increase, but also said that increasing the number of properties on the tax rolls is vital to reducing the pressure of mill levy increases.
“The burden is being placed on fewer and fewer people,” said McKee. “When we have these shortfalls, if we have more properties on a tax roll we can spread out that cost a little bit and people won’t feel that. There’s bigger conversations happening about that, especially with our growth out in Pottawatomie County, but it has to be a priority for the city over the next coming years if you ever want to see our mill levy start to go down a little bit.”
Mayor Pro Tempore Mike Dodson was concerned about the $100,000 in cuts that would largely come from Parks and Recreation. He questioned whether they could reduce the starting cash reserve in 2019 from $2.25 million to $2.15 million to avoid cutting the seasonal expenses.
“I worry about services and I don’t know what the impact of that $100,000 is,” Dodson said.
Commissioner Usha Reddi was not supportive of the zero mill levy option as it cut six full time employees.
“We are the last government agency to publish — I think Riley County already published, I think USD 383 is ready to publish. They already made their step increases and COLA (cost of living adjustment) increases, and I don’t believe they’ve decreased their staff. So, I think it just is fair if we keep it the same level for our city staff.”
Mayor Linda Morse also expressed support for the 1 mill increase option, and echoed Commissioner Reddi’s opposition to any personnel cuts at this time.
Commissioner Butler agreed he wouldn’t like to see personnel cuts, but would support it if necessary to get the city’s budget in line. He said if they need to look at cutting step increases to salaries, they should look at cutting them from administration.
“The guy that’s out there shoveling the asphalt into potholes, maybe his increase we shouldn’t mess with,” Butler said. “My belief has always been it’s the senior leadership’s job to balance the budget, and if it can’t be done any other way than chopping personnel or cutting salary increases then you don’t have the increases at the top.”
He went on to say he’s glad they got the mill levy down, but would have liked to see the increase be held to 0.5 mills rather than 1.
Badger said city staff will take commissioner’s comments into account and put some more work into the proposed 2019 budget before it goes to publication on Friday. The first public hearing on the budget will be August 7 at 7 p.m.
Utilities
The commission also received a report on the Utilities funds and recently implemented rate changes. Deputy City Manager Jason Hilgers said that the city changed rates for water and wastewater usage as well as stormwater collection effective January 1st. He said the changes were recommended as part or a cost of service study that was recently performed.
As recommended by the study, the new fee for stormwater collection is now determined by the amount of land on a property that is impervious to water. For every 3,625 square feet of such land on a residential unit, that rate will rise from $5.34 in 2018 to $5.82 in 2019. For commercial properties, that rate will rise from $3.96 in 2018 to $4.65 in 2019. City Manager Ron Fehr said those rates will go up yearly and by 2022 even out at a uniform $7.55 per 3,625 square feet of impervious property.
Water and wastewater rates will also be rising by 5 percent across the bar for 2019. The combined impact on the average residence in Manhattan is estimated to be an increase of $2.99 per month.
RCPD Update
Riley County Police Department Director Brad Schoen presented an update on the department at the Tuesday meeting. He told commissioners that part 1 crime statistics were down 7.3 percent for Manhattan and Riley County in whole during quarter 2. Though those numbers are encouraging, Schoen said they don’t tell the full story. Serious crimes against people were up 11.5 percent, and robberies were up from 7 in quarter 1 to 13 in quarter 2.
Schoen also said that what the department deems “preventable accidents” increased at the end of 2017, leading RCPD to step up traffic enforcement. He said citations and stops have increased 25 percent.
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